Monthly Archives: December 2011

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What’s included in this week’s media column (linked here): Charles Barkley has his first weigh-in on the NBA’s decision to start Christmas Day and the Clippers-vs.-Lakers new rivalry wrinkles, plus Time Warner Cable’s proposed coverage of the CIF state football championships and some interesting college football TV ratings.

What’s not included is the assessments by TNT’s Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal about whether the Clippers have overtaken the Lakers in NBA superiority with the addition of Chris Paul.

Smith’s take: “They’ll be all about cross-over dribbling and lob dunks. Talent-wise, I’d buy a ticket to see them play. But when I walk into that (Staples Center) building, the purple and gold is about winning. The Clippers have had exciting players in the past but never won. Can they win with this excitement?”

Added O’Neal: “It’s the yin and yang effect. For the Clippers, no one else is talking about Caron Butler, Chauncey Billups . . . The Clippers aren’t the little brother anymore. They’re all grown up now.”

Former NFL quarterback Mark Rypien’s daughter definitely has the looks to be a professional cheerleader. It’s something her mom, Annette, once did with the Washington Redskins.

Instead, Angela Rypien is a Lingerie Football League quarterback.

So maybe she took the best of her parents’ genes and put them to practical use.

The 21-year-old started the first two games for the LFL’s Seattle Mist, but she’s likely to be starting on the bench for Friday night’s contest against the Los Angeles Temptation at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.

In the season opener, she threw three touchdown passes in a 42-8 win over the Green Bay Chill in late September. In the next game, she had three interceptions in the first half of a 28-24 loss to the Las Vegas Sin and was replaced.

So two games in, she’s experienced the highs and lows of a professional QB. But that’s not completely accurate, either.

The Lingerie Football League players aren’t paid. They’re asked to wear the Victoria’s Secret-looking tight shorts, padded bras and hockey helmets and play 7-on-7 on a 50-yard indoor field purely for the enjoyment of the paying spectators.

How does it all work?

Angela, the single mom of a 2-year-old living in Seattle, and Mark, the MVP of Super Bowl XXVI with the Redskins and former Washington State star who ended his 11-year NFL career in 2002, explain:

Fox, CBS and NBC did multi-billion, multi-media contract rollovers with the NFL today, extending their partnerships nine more seasons through 2022 and securing the league with plenty of more comfort and financial joy now that their collective-bargaining agreement has been settled.

Multiple reports are that the three networks will pay a total of $3.1 billion each year, split nearly evenly. That’s up from a combined $1.9 billion the three are currently paying.

Add to that the $1.8 billion annually from ESPN, who earlier this year did an eight-year extension on the “Monday Night Football” through 2021, and another $1 billion a year from DirecTV for exclusive “NFL Sunday Ticket” rights.

That makes a combined $7 billion a year that NFL will get in media rights starting after 2013.

The new wrinkle in this contract: NBC will add a primetime game on Thanksgiving night beginning in 2012. It will also swap out a wild card game for a divisional playoff game, and there is “enhanced” flex scheduling that affects its “Sunday Night Football” package.

The NFL says the expanded flex scheduling starting in 2014 will also give CBS, home of the AFC, and Fox, home to the NFC, the ability to switch conference regional games to wider audiences. Further details will be “developed with the networks,” the NFL said.

The deals also allow the NFL Network to expand the number of Thursday night games — it does eight now in the second half of the season. A new number yet to be determined.

The NFL’s current TV agreements were to expire after the 2013 season.

With the championship game rotation in tact, NBC will do the Super Bowl XLIX (2015), LII (2018) and LV (2021). CBS will do Super Bowl L (2016), LIII (2019) and LVI (2022), in addition to Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans in 2013. Fox will get Super Bowls LI (2017), LIV (2020) and LVII (2023).

And everyone quoted in a written press release couldn’t sound happier.

= Sunday: 1 p.m., Channel 2: New England at Denver, with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, instead of N.Y. Jets-Philadelphia and Cleveland-Arizona. Fox also has Detroit-Oakland in this window that won’t be shown in L.A.

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